Summary
- Harmonys ONE token plunged about 40% after an apparent exploit created roughly 4 billion new tokens, increasing the supply by more than a quarter.
- The Harmony team confirmed the incident, said it is working with exchanges to freeze funds, and is preparing a software patch and possible rollback of the blockchain.
- The episode follows earlier security and token-creation issues on Harmony, including a 2022 $100 million bridge hack and a 2023 bug that improperly minted about 146.3 million ONE.
Harmony‘s ONE token fell about 40% in Asian morning hours Wednesday after an apparent exploit created roughly 4 billion new tokens, an amount equal to more than a quarter of the token’s existing supply.
The company confirmed the attack and told the network operators that help run the Harmony network to install an emergency software update that it said would prevent any further minting. The project is separately working on how to deal with tokens that were already created.
It also paused its token bridge and asked exchanges to freeze funds traced to four addresses linked to the incident.
“We are working on a patch and rollback options,” Harmony said, adding that it would provide another update when more information is available.
We are asking all exchanges to block and freeze funds that traces back to these 4 wallet addresses:
Harmony is a layer 1 blockchain network for DeFi protocols and marketplaces. Its native token, ONE, is used to pay for transactions and help secure the chain. The project was among the biggest by market cap in its heyday, valued at $4 billion in January 2022.
Roughly 15 billion ONE existed before the incident, meaning another 4 billion represents a sudden increase of about 26% against that supply.